More than eighty years ago, Harvard began what has been called ‘the most comprehensive longitudinal study on adult development’.  And, amazingly the study continues today. Its’ overall conclusion is simple and yet challenging to always achieve – “Good relationships keep us happier and healthier.”

The study makes three major points:

1. Social connections are really good for our health and well-being.
2. It’s the quality not quantity of our close relationships that matters most.
   
3. Good relationships protect both our bodies and brains.

Perhaps that’s why:

• Gallup has asked the question, “I have a best friend at work” in its’ Q12 Employee Survey to millions of employees.
• A ten year research study showed “as much as 35% of the variability in discretionary performance of employees is a result of their manager’s style and behavior.”  
• A Fortune 100 company found that employees who felt their boss showed “genuine interest and concern for their well-being” had engagement levels 30+ percentage points higher than their counterparts.
• Research has also found that our brains work better when we feel positive.  So, important things in business such as creativity, decision-making abilities, and fewer errors (by staying more focused) are impacted.
• People stay where they are happy and also have higher levels of attendance.

Which leads me to a practical question – what can businesses pro-actively do to assist professional, quality relations in the workplace?  I’m suggesting things well beyond the traditional boilerplate statements many organizations make about harassment, diversity, and inclusion.

Below is a quick Internal Quality Relations (IQR) Assessment I use with clients. Please score each question either 3 = very consistent; 2 = inconsistent; or 1 = very inconsistent.

In our organization, internal quality relations (IQRs) are critical to our success so we:

• Highlight these desired behaviors in living our values?
• Review our spans of control (supervisor to employee ratios) to allow time to build quality relations?
• Clarify specific expectations for both leaders and employees?
• Hold everyone accountable for building and maintaining internal quality relations?
• Pro-actively address ‘destructive’ relations in the workplace?
• Monitor key internal relations using different assessment tools?
• Include their importance in our orientation and onboarding?
• Teach everyone effective ways to handle differences of opinion and resolve disagreements?
• Conduct ongoing cross-functional teams to minimize ‘silo thinking and limited relations’?
• Hold networking activities so employees can easily ‘connect’ with others outside their workgroup?
• Select people (new hires and internal promotions) who exhibit strong relationship building skills and get results?
• Factor relationship building behaviors in both recognition and reward activities?

Next Steps. Items rated a “‘3” above - how do you leverage these behaviors?  Items rated “2” or “1”- start by picking one item to proactively start addressing, over the next 30 days, which would significantly impact relationships in your workplace.

When relationships are non-existent, unsure, tense, or broken then many employees will react with unproductive behaviors including:

• Closing off real dialog
• Overreacting to feedback
• Second-guessing decisions
• Resisting change
• Overstepping boundaries
• Manipulating information and situations
• Blaming others          

It’s impossible to keep 100% of employees happy all the time, but enabling sincere, honest, trusting relationships can make a huge competitive difference. Let’s remember that the opposite of relationship includes: division, dispute, dissension, disengagement, and even divorce (leaving). And, in life and work – rules without relationships equals resistance. Can your organization afford the waste of time, money, and human capability created by poor internal relations? Good relationships just don’t happen.  Is it time to be proactive and address?

Pod D is a wing of our local cancer center where chemo treatments are given. It’s where we have spent considerable time over the past four months as my beautiful bride of 35 years battles pancreatic cancer. 

There’s nothing unique about the physical layout or equipment in Pod D. There’s lots of sterile stuff.  And, the nurses’ station with PC’s, pharmaceutical dispensing devices, IV poles, patients’ reclining chairs; and caregivers’ straight back chairs could be found in many other medical settings.   

What makes Pod D so different is the emotional environment and the people – staff, volunteers, patients, and caregivers.  Their collective attitudes and behaviors have reminded us in this time of personal anxiety, shock, and unknowns of some timeless truths. While the following seem self-evident and hardly worth mentioning – they are in fact priceless if consistently lived out in families, neighborhoods, schools, churches, and businesses.     

Here are a few truths that have been reinforced in Pod D:  

• Escaping is not optional. Pains, hurts, disappointments, and tears happen in life. We can’t escape them all by blaming others, buying something, or refusing to accept reality. But a positive attitude and mental outlook can be very helpful and healing.  Attitude is everything!
• Life is lived through perspective.  Being tethered to an IV pole or the toilet for severe side effects of chemo is excruciating. But, amazingly it feels just a little bit more bearable when you meet two brothers sitting side by side and both are getting treatment or a young father eating popsicles from his 3 year olds giraffe insulated cooler to reduce his mouth sores from his 12th chemo treatment. Even a small change in one’s perspective can change his/her outlook on a specific situation and/or life. How many things or people in life have we looked at and never really seen?
• Each step is a step. Treatment, improvement and healing are one step at a time. NO fast track. Sometimes it means reinventing a daily routine or creating a new habit. Sometimes it means celebrating small successes like fewer trips to the bathroom. But every step adds up to a bigger thing. Speed is not as important in life as direction and the will and strength to not stop.   
• Walls and fences divide and separate. Pod D has minimized any walls of bias. Patients and caregivers spend little to no time or energy on differences (like the type of cancer one has, gender, ethnicity, age, or economic status) but instead focus on what they are battling in common. Most often we exchange experiences, words of encouragement, some laughter and a few tears. There’s compassion from feeling sorry WITH people not for people.
• The secret to living is giving. A literal army of volunteers serve at the cancer center. Some are survivors. Others have lost a love one to this terrible disease. ALL of them focus on showing they care through simple acts of service. Consider the effect of giving one little word of kindness, a smile, a helping hand, or a moment of truly listening to another person. It could make the difference between a good or bad day for BOTH of you.         
• Collect memories not things. In an instance, everything in life can change. The people we have met in Pod D don’t talk about things such as job titles; houses; cars; and expensive electronic devices or clothes. They talk about memories of events and relationships. Stop waiting till tomorrow because schedules will still be jammed and the demands for your time and attention will outstrip your supply. Memories are the long-lasting adhesive that fastens pictures to the walls in our heart and mind. They can bring joy, comfort, and connection for a life-time.   

We saved the best ‘truth’ for last. Faith trumps fear. Someone once said, “Faith is seeing light with your heart when all your eyes see is darkness”. Something positive will come from my wife’s battle with cancer. So after months of chemo treatments, we head cautiously optimistic toward her June 4th Nanoknife surgery near Chicago. We have faith. So, we see light and with it hope.  

St. Augustine said it best, “The truth is like a lion. You don’t have to defend it. Let it loose. It will defend itself.”  We challenge you to let these 7 truths from Pod D loose in your life!! They will make the challenging times easier and the good times even better. And, that’s the truth!

One of the biggest blind spots and biases I have encountered in my career is the mindset – ‘ok, but that doesn’t apply to us because we are different’. Countless research findings, fundamental principles, and good techniques are often thrown out. Many organizations ultimately avoid changing how people perceive things should be done, how they interact, what they spend time improving on.  

Last month I had the honor of doing a workshop on communication at the Construction Education Institute near Chicago. We discussed common communication challenges including:

• the fundamental differences between sharing information and communication
• handling large amounts of information being exchanged because of new technology
• the criticalness of balancing high tech and high touch communication, and
• increasing awareness of individual communication styles and preferences then aligning to maximize understanding

Workshop participants determined in exercises that:

• There was too little communication to create and sustain high performance (79%)
• Their organizational grapevine needed pruning due to too much fertilizer – poor communication (92%).
• Current big wastes in their communication included: listening to better understand not reply; creating more dialog and less messages; and balancing ‘need to know’ and ‘nice to know’ information.

How would your organizational assessment of your current communication effectiveness compare – the same or different? 

Effective communication must drive outcomes – what is done, when it is done, and how consistently it is done.  Many organizations create lots of well-intended communication activities but ultimately don’t drive understanding and therefore behaviors. Personal accountability to learn and actively use proven communication skills, techniques, and processes is ‘hit or miss’ and there are limited or no consequences for avoiding or not doing it.

So, where do you start? Here are four fundamental areas that deserve time, attention, and disciple to create effective communication for high performing organizations.  

1. A strategy or plan.  Here we are talking about forethought not afterthought about some basics including: key objectives of your internal communication; messages to be shared; methods and media to use; key roles; feedback mechanisms; and success measurements.
2. Voice of the employee (VOE).  What are your employees expecting and actually experiencing with your communication efforts?  Customer feedback helps drive continuous improvement in your products and services.  Employee feedback should do the same for internal communication.
3. Key communication processes to be used.  These should include a balance of high tech and high touch.  What communication process is used for ‘breaking news’? For additional background or historical information?   For reinforcement of key messages?  Please don’t put all your communication eggs into a single process.
   
4. Standards.  As noted management expert, Joseph Juran once said, “without a standard there is no logical basis for making a decision or taking action.” For example, does your organization have standards for interpersonal communication; electronic and social media communication use; or the timing, frequency, and duration of organizational communication?                        

Research shows an organization of 100 people will spend 17 hours per week or more than $500,000 annually clarifying previous communication. Poor communication also impact internal collaboration, trust, relationships, consistency, and performance.

So is your organization really different when it comes to communication? If not, then what is proactively being done to improve its’ effectiveness?   
 
 
To learn more about Brian’s workshop on Communication download the topic description: …https://www.briangareauinc.com/uploads/3/9/0/0/39008241/wouldsomeonecommunicate-sb.pdf or contact us at 214-543-0844.
 

As 2019 starts, I have seen a number of people post or say something like – “new year and fresh start”. Ideally they are correct BUT realistically little to nothing will change (even with a fresh start) if we all continue to think, feel, and act the same way we did as 2018 concluded. Flipping a calendar page won’t do it – proactively changing behaviors will.

Change is hard. We naturally resist it. We think it’s great for others, but we are okay just the way we are. But, without change there can be no improvement. Without action, energy, discipline, and continued focus the goals and objectives we set for this new year will become even more challenging.  
Here are three key areas where active not passive commitment and effort could make a HUGE difference in 2019:

1. Organizational values. A major challenge with values is few, if any, employees or leaders would debate them. No one would say that integrity isn’t important or customer focus isn’t critical in business. But, here’s the catch – everyone would say their behaviors consistently support the organization’s values but they see others who do not. This is especially true in challenging and/or difficult situations. So why not proactively: 

• Take the guess work out – clarify the most critical values-based behaviors needed to ‘walk the talk’ in 2019. 
  
• Use simple, practical measurement tools and techniques to gage and address behaviors that are perceived to be both in and out of sync with your values. Add credibility by pro-actively addressing perceived out-of-sync behaviors. 
• Ensure there are consistent consequences – both positive and negative – for values. When values are actively lived they must be recognized and rewarded. If they are skipped, avoided, and/or only pulled out when convenient, then they must be proactively addressed and corrected. There can’t be double-standards and inconsistencies.  It simply erodes trust.
• Simulate desired values-based behaviors. We are always better prepared when we practice. Initiate ‘Value Scenarios of the Month’ for all employees and ‘Values Case Studies’ in all leadership development activities.  
  

2. Supervisor/employee relationship. It’s been said, ‘rules without relationships equals resistance.’ The only relationship that may be more important in a business than the company-customer relationship is the manager-employee relationship. Exit-interview research shows the No.1 reason people leave their jobs is their managers. And, research also indicates ‘as much as 35% of the variability in discretionary performance of employees is a result of managerial styles and behaviors.’
Author Maya Angelou once said, “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” So, this year how can we make employees feel more:

• Important?
• Genuinely cared for?
• Appreciated?

One of the most powerful ways to build a relationship or tear it down is time. Time always seems in short supply – some are controlled by it – others fight against it. And, time has been described as “the cruelest teacher, because first she gives the test, then teaches the lesson.” Build stronger, genuine relationships this year through improved quality time with employees. 
 
3. Individual Accountability. Mistakes happen. Assumptions and oversights occur. Sometimes people lose focus and are careless. People (employees and leaders) are not perfect. BUT, that doesn’t mean that there can’t be accountability!   

If there is ‘perceived’ blaming, shaming, lecturing, punishing, threatening, and/or humiliating then accountability will be avoided. If failure is considered fatal for individual performance and or career advancement, then risk taking and innovation will suffer. If accountability is only talked about when something goes wrong, people will naturally associate it with something negative.
So consider focusing on the following three accountability actions this year:

• Gain true consensus on what specifically employees are AND are not accountable for.
• Watch for and proactivity address people who are avoiding accountability.
• Embrace a new definition of accountability – it’s a personal choice to proactively influence, take ownership, and deliver desired results.
  

Take a proactive approach to Values, Relationships, and Accountability this year, instead of waiting or seeing if anything happens. Avoid reacting and responding – instead initiate! It could be just the catalyst for change and all those critical improvements needed in 2019.    

According to the U.S. National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), last year we threw away over 200 million pounds of turkey meat after Thanksgiving. That equates to over 6 million turkeys or more than $290M in the U.S. And, that doesn’t factor in the wasted resources (time, labor, food, water, etc.) to raise these birds. Unbelievable!

Eliminating waste (non-value) in organizations has also been and will continue to be a relentless journey. One significant mindset, practice, and framework to conserve resources and eliminate waste was the Toyota Production System (TPS). It became the precursor to Lean efforts today. In TPS, seven ‘wastes’ were originally identified. But an eighth waste – human capability (non-utilized talent, skills, and knowledge) was added when the western world adopted TPS.

Unfortunately, too often this 8th waste (human capability) gets the least amount of time and attention when implementing and sustaining most, critical continuous improvement strategies. There’s great technical alignment and execution but average to poor adoption of culture change. The result is non-sustainable results, frustration, and sometimes more waste.
 
Take a moment and reflect on the following equation:

   Current Employees’ Capabilities minus Capabilities Actually Used = Waste of Human Capability Potential

What impact would tackling human capability ‘waste’ have on your business’ customer value, quality, velocity, and cost? What ‘potential’ is untapped?

Below you will find my Waste of Human Capability Potential Assessment that is used with clients. Simply rate each question using the following scale where 1 = Little Waste; 2 = Some Waste; and 3 = Too Much Waste. Remember there is some ‘waste’ of human capability in ALL organizations.

Currently our organization’s ability to [fill in with each phrase below] creates this level of ‘waste’?  It doesn’t allow us to maximize the full potential of employees’ talents, skills, and knowledge.  

1. Communicate information then ensure its’ understanding  ___
2. Ask employees, “What do you think?” ___
3. Respect and value others (opinions, experiences, backgrounds) ___
4. Surface and respond to employees’ work related issues ___
5. Handle internal conflicts in a healthy manner ___
6. Collaborate - put diverse individuals/groups together to find new solutions to old problems ___
7. Place employees where their skills and knowledge are best utilized ___
8. Provide necessary resources (tools, technology, training, time) to ALL employees ___
9. Involve employees doing the job in daily decision-making processes ___
10. Empower employees to think and act like owners not renters ___
11. Encourage employees to learn from each other ___
12. Reinforce desired behaviors by both recognition and rewards ___
13. Proactively address both performance and behavior issues ___
14. Develop others (skills for current and future jobs) ___
15. Draw valuable lessons from past mistakes and errors ___
16. Capture best practices and lessons learned from people retiring or leaving ___

If you scored your organization a total of 16 points on the above assessment then congratulations, your organization is set up to maximize its’ workforce’s human capability potential.  If your total score was higher than 16 points then there is potential waste of employees’ heads (creative ideas and problem-solving), hearts (commitment), hands (physical work), and habits.

Let’s talk turkey (frank, straightforward, and seriously) – How much human capability ‘waste’ (untapped potential) would be uncovered in your organization if every employee honestly answered - “Are we maximizing your potential contributions to the organization? Why or why not?”     

Think back to previous Halloween evenings. Your neighborhood is filled with princesses, witches, ghosts, and superheroes going door-to-door collecting ‘treats’. Very quickly there’s information ‘on the street’ that there are full-sized candy bars at the Smiths’ house; homemade cookies at the Andersons’ house; oranges at the Holmes’ home; and pencils at the Jones’. Many kids start prioritizing which houses they will go to depending on the ‘treat’ they will or will not get. All the homes had good intentions, but some fell way short of meeting the trick-or-treaters’ expectations. The same holds true for many organization’s recognition efforts. 
        
Here’s a short, Halloween-themed assessment on real life recognition efforts I have seen in my nearly 20 years of consulting. For each scenario, determine if it was a ‘trick or treat’ specifically in regard to effective recognition practices:

1. Water popsicles were given out during shift to show appreciation for all the extra effort despite unusually high temperatures and humidity in the shop. BUT, the first day a number of employees passed. The second day EVERYONE participated because both sugar and sugar-free popsicles were made available.
Trick or Treat? 

Remember - in effective recognition, one size does not fit all.

2. Employees were thrilled with the special, free barbeque lunch served by management. There were lots of favorable comments after about the pork, sauce selections, baked beans, coleslaw, and cornbread BUT employees struggled to answer a basic question – Why are we celebrating?

Trick or Treat?

Remember – be specific as to what you are recognizing otherwise it may not be repeated.

3. A supervisor gave each project team member a colorful recognition certificate for completing the special project on time and under budget. One of the eight team members looked disappointed. The supervisor found out that he/she misspelled the employee’s names on their certificate.

Trick or Treat? 

Remember - little things mean a lot in showing appreciation!

4. A supervisor purchased ‘blank’ thank you cards and wrote personalized notes to each employee when they wanted to reinforce a specific employee behavior or result.

Trick or Treat? 

Remember – most people value personalized recognition and appreciation significantly more than generic thanks.

5. Customer feedback on an exception service recovery effort was received. The supervisor delayed communicating the feedback and recognizing the employee for two weeks – until their next scheduled staff meeting.

Trick or Treat? 

Remember – timeliness increases the perceived value of recognition.

Effective recognition is one of the key processes organizations can use to strengthen, reinforce, or increase the probability of a specific action, behavior, or result occurring. Recognition shows appreciation and thanks through non-financial means – unlike rewards which are financially based. When employees feel they have made sacrifices, put in extra effort, solved problems, and delivered results but nobody says anything, it can be perceived that ‘it just doesn’t matter.’  And, when employees feel it doesn’t matter, many will stop doing it or doing it consistently well.   

Would more effective recognition lift the ‘spirits’ in your organization?  

Everyone has expectations, it’s human nature.  Expectations can vary from high to low, met to unmet, spoken to unspoken, and reasonable to unreasonable. When expectations are met in life and at work, we experience a level of satisfaction and contentment.  When they are unmet, our emotions can quickly shift to surprise, disappointment, anger, blame, and even fear the expectations will continue to be unmet.  

Employees have expectations of their leaders.  So does the business.  But, there’s a danger when we expect something from leaders and automatically assume it will be fulfilled.  It can lead to performance stagnation or decline, anxiety, disengagement, and even higher turnover.  Are expectations of leaders in your organization -- reasonable or unreasonable?  What are you actively doing to manage these expectations?

Expectations have a powerful impact on trust and respect.  And, trust impacts performance.  For example, in PwC’s 2016 global CEO survey, ‘55% of CEOs thought that a lack of trust was a threat to their organization’s growth.’  Ken Blanchard Companies’ research found that ‘45% of employees said lack of trust in leadership was the biggest issue in work performance.’

Some of you might be thinking ‘but we already have values, leadership competencies, and job descriptions.  Isn’t that enough?’  Maybe – maybe not.

Expectations are simply beliefs that a certain outcome or event will happen (we apply assumptions). But, expectations are not agreement.  That only takes place with consistent execution of an aligned set of repeatable processes that communicate, teach, and reinforce desired outcomes and behaviors.    
Is your current process for managing leadership expectation effective and efficient in:

• Providing straightforwardness and transparency to both leaders and employees?
• Driving more consistent use of standard methods & techniques?
• Providing specifics on timing, frequency, duration, processes to use?
• Creating more consistency regardless of location, experience level, personalities, or level of supervision?
• Driving higher levels of accountability?
• Sustaining momentum regardless of leadership changes?
• Improving both performance and development of leaders?  

Understanding, creating, and managing expectations is critical for sustained success.  Pushing leaders to achieve their best can lead to very positive results. But, unrealistic expectations can backfire and be dangerous.  Is it time for your organization to do a reality check of how it is managing leadership expectations?

One final thought.  It’s widely acknowledged that leadership has a significant impact on performance and competitiveness.  Research has found organizations with the highest quality leaders were 13 times more likely to outperform their competition in bottom-line metrics.  In addition, as much as 35% of the variability in employee discretionary performance is a result of managerial styles and behaviors. When it comes to managing leadership expectations, let’s be respectfully relentless and relentlessly respectful.  It will pay BIG dividends.

Interested in Leadership Expectation best practices (beliefs, plans, and execution)?  If so let’s connect at Brian@BrianGareauInc.com or at 309.634.9137 USA    

For over 56 million kids in America, it’s that time of year – back to school. It’s also a time filled with many emotions – excitement, anxiety, and even a little sadness.

Our school days are also a great laboratory to go back and ‘unwrap’ some foundational principles about performance management in the workplace. These principles are not complicated. But, they do take practice, discipline, and reinforcement to consistently do.

Consider in school:

• Performance management starts the first day. Easing into it later only creates confusion, frustration, and stress.     
• Classroom expectations are consistent with school expectations.
• Two assumptions are avoided - ‘kids are smart, they should already know the rules’ and ‘kids resent the time spent on reinforcing the rules’.  Kids like predictability (adults do too).
• Two sets of expectations are set – performance and behavior. 
• Performance and behavior expectations must be communicated clearly. A teacher who says, ‘speak quietly’ is more likely to get the desired result than saying ‘act appropriately’. 
• Everyone wants to know ‘how they will be graded’. This includes progress reports and final grades.
• Giving feedback is continuous. Creating new habits takes lots of reinforcement. Thank goodness for all those smiles, words of encouragement, little notes, smiley faces, and stickers.
• Measurement of performance must be meaningful, specific, and enforceable. For example, is it more important that black ink is used or that the hand writing is legible?     
• There are natural consequences for a student’s performance and behavior – both positive and negative. 
• Expectations can change depending on the teacher’s style. One teacher might be more project-based and another more focused on memorizing facts. So, it is critical students know the style.

Let’s take a quick quiz (assessment) from lessons learned going ‘back to school’.  Rate each either 1 (consistently done) or 2 (inconsistently done). 

In our organization, most leaders:

1. Start performance management in a timely manner by setting clear expectations of goals, objectives, and behaviors at the start of an employee’s performance cycle – not weeks or months later.
2. Follow the organization’s standards for key performance process steps (frequency, timeliness, quality of).
3. Avoid making assumptions that employees are ‘smart and already know that stuff’ about performance management – without thoroughly checking.
4. Discuss and document both what needs to be achieved (goals & objectives) and how it should be achieved (processes & values-based behaviors).
5. Seek clear, concise employee understanding of what they should continue doing, start doing, or stop doing.
6. Tell employees upfront ‘how performance will be graded’ and keep those rules throughout the performance year.
7. Give continuous feedback through timely, dedicated reinforcement and coaching.
8. Measure success with factors that are meaningful, specific, and enforceable. 
9. Allow the natural consequences of employees’ performance and behaviors to play out.
10. Provide clarity as to what style of documentation and measurement they prefer when the performance cycle begins.

Performance management is so much more than an end of year appraisal. It’s a critical job responsibility of each leader to help plan, develop, monitor, grade, and reward employees for their contributions – not their activities.

It has been said, ‘No one rises to low expectations.’ When we tolerate taking short-cuts, skipping steps, and allowing countless exceptions to the rules in performance management, we lower the bar on potential higher performance. How ironic! Maybe it’s time we go ‘back to school’ and stop making things so complicated.    

Have you ever heard or thought – “we can’t work in the same company.” Things just aren’t done consistently between work-groups, departments, shifts, locations, etc. – especially when it comes to people-related activities surrounding performance management. 

Leaders have different strengths, weaknesses, behaviors and personalities, so it is natural they approach performance management differently. But, all employees need to see some consistent application of both formal and informal rules for important performance activities including:

• Reinforcing good behavior and performance
• Enhancing average behavior and performance
• Correcting poor behavior and performance
• Disciplining unacceptable behavior and performance

A best practice we developed in my roles as Start-up and then Operations General Manager in a Fortune 50 corporation was a weekly ACT meeting.  Its’ focus was 100% on taking action to drive Accountability, Consistency, and Trust. This standing meeting was mandatory for anyone who had the privilege of supervising others – no exceptions. The format was a simple round-table discussion. 

First, each leader was asked to answer two sets of questions:

1. Who should we make sure to thank for their extra effort, performance, or values-based behavior this week?  Why?  (Then ALL leaders reinforced, over the next several days, by stopping - showing sincere appreciation – and reinforcing).
2. Who should we be aware of that is being corrected or disciplined?  Why?

And then, a final exercise was done where one specific policy or procedure in the employee handbook was reviewed by the on-site HR specialist.  This helped create a common interpretation and execution.

What we initially found, through healthy dialog and debate, were that leaders had lots of different tolerance levels, ignored, or made excuses for certain employee behavior and performance.  These inconsistencies created perceived favoritism, trust issues, and eroded relationships.  And, they all negatively affected performance. 

International businesswoman Margaret Heffernan once said, “for good ideas and true innovation, you need human interaction, conflict, argument, and debate.”  I would add that these same key elements are needed for creating a high performance organization with Accountability, Consistency, and Trust (ACT).

During my workshop last month at the Construction Education Institute, we discussed one of the biggest challenges in cultural change – aligning and coaching new required/desired behaviors of both employees and leaders.  Alignment is critical because it helps answer a basic question for each employee – here’s the impact you and your behavior have on the business. Bottom line – what you do and how you do it really does matter!

Common alignment issues include:

• Aligned behavior not routinely reinforced.  Many times this can lead to people believing it’s not important to continue to do a specific behavior. In addition, immediacy teaches the correlation between the positive reinforcement and new, desired behavior.  Research indicates to change a new behavior into a habit requires 17-21 times of reinforcement.  

• Inconsistent behavior not coached in a timely manner.  Consistency teaches predictability, creates trust and helps eliminate stress and confusion.  When behavior exceptions become the general rule - the ‘accepted or perceived way we do things here’ (culture) gets very fuzzy.  Fuzziness creates a loss of clarity.  Clarity is the first step in personal accountability.        
• Misaligned behavior tolerated too long. Procrastination or lack of pro-activity can set a precedent and provide for extended debates and arguments that it ‘was or use to be okay’.  Rationalizing misaligned behaviors by making excuses only allows the behavior and perceptions to continue. In addition, a leader’s overall effectiveness can be called into question by other direct reports, peers, and upper management when misaligned behavior is tolerated too long.
  
• Unacceptable behavior consumes too much time.  It absolutely takes time to properly address prolonged or blatant unacceptable behavior.  But it is important to remember, that in most cases, if a leader has already effectively explained the behavior  the employee is expected to improve, coached them on ways to improve, and allowed time for the employee to make improvement then most issues will not get to this stage.

Here are five key skills that can help you better align behavior: 

1. Dealing with differences of opinion 
2. Giving and accepting feedback
3. Creating mutual responsibility in accountability (between supervisor and employee)
4. Coaching for reinforcement, enhancement, correction, and discipline
5. Using positive reinforcement (research shows the ideal praise/criticism ratio for maximum performance is nearly 6 to 1)

Most leaders know these skills are important but struggle to properly allocate the necessary time to consistently execute them. Also, some leaders are misguided and think these skills are nice to have but not needed to be successful.  

Have your leaders mastered all five skills?  If not, then your culture has unnecessary waste, performance inefficiencies, and loses of human creativity & capability.    
       
Author Jim Collins once said, “Building a visionary company requires one percent vision and 99% alignment.”  Don’t make behavior alignment a last resort performance remedy.

If you would like to leverage some practical techniques in these five skills, then let’s connect!